LICI's 2023 Map of Places to See Blooming Irises Deemed a Huge Success

June 4, 2023 Mandeville, La.

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) released its final figures for the Facebook postings and the number of goggle views for the 2023 Louisiana Iris View Locations map. The map was created jointly between LICI and Common Ground Relief. This was the third year the map was produced and made available online to the public. The final total views of the interactive map for this season's iris bloom was over 46,130 views.

Photo: The 2023 Louisiana Iris Viewing Locations map can be found by clicking here.

Photo: The ranking of the sites found on the map for the 2023 spring iris bloom.

The map ranks the very best to the almost best for each site found on the map. By clicking on each icon, you will be taken to a page of that location with information and ten photos of the site.

Not all of the sites are the location of one of LICI's iris restoration projects, but most are.

"An important part of LICI's mission is to get people out to the boardwalks and nature trails to see the native wild Louisiana irises in bloom," says LICI's Gary Salathe. "We think this map has been very effective in accomplishing that goal," he adds.

LICI's markets the map in several different ways, but the most effective is the Facebook postings about the map they do regularly on the LICI Facebook page leading up to the iris bloom and while the bloom is happening, according to Salathe. They report that three of their Facebook postings generated over 40,000 post impressions each, which is the number of people whom the posting was shown on their news feed.

Photo: One of three LICI's Facebook postings about the 2023 Louisiana Iris Viewing Locations map that went viral, each getting over 40,000 impressions,

7,500 post engagements and over 1,000 likes.

Photo: "The goal of our map is to get huge numbers of people out to the boardwalks and nature trails to see our wild, native Louisiana irises in bloom. We think

we accomplished that again this year." Salathe says.

Friends Group to Partner with LICI to Manage Irises at Palmetto Island State Park Boardwalk

May 31, 2023 Abbeville, La.

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) has announced that the Friends of the Palmetto Island State Park, Inc. will partner with them on their iris restoration project at the Palmetto Island State Park's boardwalk. The Friends group will help support the project with funding. LICI will organize the work to maintain the I. nelsonii species of the Louisiana iris planting there and add more of these irises later this year. Gary Salathe, the president of LICI said, "We appreciate their support of the project, as well as the support of the park's staff and manager."

Photos: This outlines the items on the proposal accepted by the Louisiana Department of State Parks for LICI to manage the iris planting at the Palmetto Island State Park boardwalk. The Friends of the Park group has now joined as partners with LICI to accomplish

these tasks.

The iris restoration project at the boardwalk in Palmetto State Park began in 2011 as an idea by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries (LW&F). These irises are only found in the wild within the privately owned Abbeville Swamp, located a few miles from the park. The swamp is not open to the public. The idea was that some of the very rare I. nelsonni irises could be displayed for the public in a protected location at the park. The Friends of Palmetto Island State Park implemented plan. The Friends group purchased I. nelsonni irises for a planting that the LW&F proposed at the park’s boardwalk. The LW&F supplied the iris expertise, and volunteers of the Friends group did the planting. The Friends group added more irises the next year when they received a donation to purchase irises from the supplier that LW&F had previously recommended.

Photo: A view of the boardwalk at Palmetto State Park where the I. nelsonni irises are planted.

Soon after the 2011 iris plantings, Louisiana hybrid cultivars appeared in the boardwalk swamp among the I. nelsonni irises. Some of these cultivars cross-pollinated with the I. nelsonni, making it harder and harder to tell which irises were the original irises. The COVID pandemic stopped all work on managing the irises at the boardwalk. "LICI and the Friends group's partnership will start working to get 100% of the irises at the boardwalk to be pure I. nelsonni irises by removing the cultivars," says Gary Salathe, president of LICI.

Photo: Kent Benton is seen in a small area of his Louisiana iris plantings on his farm in Livingston Parish , La. He has offered to donate hundreds of I. nelsonni seedlings and potted irises for the Palmetto State Park iris restoration project.

The most important part of the iris restoration project at the park is to significantly increase the number of I. nelsonni irises growing there. Kent Benton, an iris enthusiast and expert on the iris, will donate between 800 and 1,000 I. nelsonni seedlings from his farm. LICI will accept the iris seedling donation and use their iris holding area in New Orleans to grow them into full-size plants. The goal is to prepare the irises for planting at the park's boardwalk this fall. A grant from the Friends' group is covering the cost of soil and installing the platform and containers for LICI to grow out the seedlings.

Photo: Volunteers at the LICI iris holding area are seen working during the fall of 2022. A separate row of containers will be installed to grow out the I. nelsonni irises being donated by Kent Benton for the Palmetto Island State Park project.

Salathe says that the plan is to get permission from the owners of the Abbeville Swamp to collect seeds from the I. nelsonni irises growing there this summer. Other interested groups with nurseries will help germinate the seeds for LICI to grow into mature plants next year for planting at the park's boardwalk. "If we can get the park's boardwalk swamp full of I. nelsonni irises, our long-term plan would be to thin them out to create a supply for increasing the irises within the Abbeville Swamp itself," Salathe says about one of the goals of the project. "The Friends of Palmetto Island State Park joining with us is going to play a key role in making this happen," he sums up.

LICI Completes Five Iris Rescues For Nicholls State University Wetlands Project

May 20, 2023 Laplace, La.

The Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative (LICI) has completed five Louisiana iris rescues to assemble the irises needed for planting into the Nicholls State University's Wetlands Project. LICI signed onto the project at the Nicholls Farm earlier this year when construction of the project was nearing completion. There are two irises planting events scheduled at the farm for later this month when the irises will be planted.

Photo: The Nicholls State Farm Wetlands Project as seen on May 6, 2023.

The wetlands project is a joint effort between Nicholls State University and Ducks Unlimited. The plan is to pump water from nearby Bayou Folse into one end of the wetlands and have then have plants within the wetlands remove an overabundance of nutrients in the water. The bayou is really just a drainage canal at that upstream location. It drains nearby residential areas - many using individual septic tanks for sewerage treatment, some farmland and sugar cane fields (heavy fertilizer users), and some urban run-off from the town. Once the nutrients are reduced, water from the wetlands will be returned to the bayou and the process will then be repeated. The overall goal is to use it as a demonstration project to show how nutrients can be removed from rivers and creeks upstream in the Mississippi River watershed before they flow into the river. This will help reduce the size of the algae bloom each year in the Gulf of Mexico. A secondary goal is to use the wetlands as a wild duck habitat.

LICI was invited to partner in the project so it could be used as a home for its rescued irises. Louisiana irises remove huge amounts of nutrients from the water and soil in their swamps. The goal is to plant thousands of irises into the project by the end of this year, according to the LICI's Gary Salathe.

To get the irises for the Nicholls Farm project, LICI worked with two other non-profits that have supported their past efforts. Common Ground Relief scheduled an iris rescue with some students they were hosting for a five-day service visit to New Orleans. Limitless Vistas/ Gulf Corps offered to help by doing four iris rescues with their job-training crew.

Photo: Some of the twenty students for The College School in St. Louis, MO, are seen on an iris rescue organized by Common Ground Relief.

Common Ground Relief had an eighth-grade school group in from St. Louis, Missouri, from The College School for a week of service activities in late April. They ended up rescuing over 2,800 irises from a site west of New Orleans that LICI has been working to remove irises during the last few years.

Photo: Part of the Limitless Vistas/ Gulf Corps crew is shown at one of four iris rescues they did during the month of May to help gather the irises needed for the wetlands project.

LICI organized four iris rescues from the same site during the first part of May with Limitless Vistas/ Gulf Corps to get enough irises for the planned wetlands plantings during the last week of May. They collected a total of 3,000 irises.

"We really appreciate the help we received from these two groups to make sure we get off to a great start planting irises into this new project at Nicholls Farm," Salathe says.